


starting over

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:13:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7078369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting over is difficult in practice. Based on a teaser that one of the science duo would rethink the decision to start over. (Written and published on tumblr before 3x17 aired, so canon divergent, but it ended up being the same general idea!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	starting over

**Author's Note:**

> xoxoxo to itsavolcano for reading/editing/encouraging me - this was the first thing I'd written in like a decade, haha. Mistakes are all mine!

Sometimes, she feels she’s worked so hard and still doesn’t understand how she got from point A to point B, or D, or Z, or wherever the hell she is now. These decisions she’s made, they run through her mind all the time. This isn’t where she thought she’d be.

Starting over might have been a mistake. But she missed him  _so much_ , and her grieving for Will was compounded by this all-consuming guilt. He was such a good man, and after dying for her, did he deserve the relief she felt when, at least, Fitz had survived? Because she knew then that she would sacrifice everyone— _the whole world —_for Fitz, but Will had died without ever seeing the sunlight and that knowledge was suffocating her. 

Really, she’s been drowning since the med-pod. It wasn’t fair for Fitz to force the choice, but she had taken the last breath and maybe that was the jumping off point. Point A. 

Maybe selfless men keep falling in love with her, and she keeps taking their last breath.

++

“Okay, but what if we just modify the—”

“Receptors, yes. Shouldn’t be too much of a hassle after Daisy’s; her abilities are similar enough,” she finishes for him, easily, in a way it hasn’t been for years. 

Starting over might have been brilliant. They talk in and around each other. They bicker, and it’s just hashing out ideas—it’s not the weight of their mistakes, it’s not trying to survive in a hurricane of unshed tears. It’s not having her heart repeatedly torn open until she can’t bear it because even while she’s strong, he is all of her weaknesses.

Now it’s just Fitz, smug and assured—which is annoying because her suggestion is  _clearly_  better. It’s Academy-era squabbling, like maybe they can force the restart after all.

But her chest didn’t constrict like this in the beginning. In the beginning, it was thrilling to have a partner who really understood her—to finally, at 16, feel like she knew what friendship meant. It’s not really starting over when she can still feel his lips on hers, his rough hands drawing her closer, his breathing syncing up with her own. When she can still feel her world ending, over and over and over again. 

++

Tonight isn’t one of their movie nights, but Jemma wishes it were. It’s strange to miss Fitz most of all—more than her family, her old life, her teammates who are gone. She sees Fitz all the time, and she still misses him. So when she’s done at the lab, having worked through dinner, she walks by his room and hesitates.

Well, if they’re really starting over, this should be simple. Jemma followed him around all the time back then, probably to his great annoyance. She didn’t let him have personal space. Stopping by at night, just to see him before bed, that’s nothing unusual. She has done incredibly brave things, but knocking still feels like jumping out of a plane.

He answers after a pause, bleary-eyed, shirt and trousers wrinkled after he’d collapsed into bed without bothering to change. She immediately knows he’s upset and she tamps down panicky alarms in her head.  _Not everything is about you, Jemma_.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, softly, once he’s invited her in and she’s sitting up on his bed—close, but just friend-close. Well, normal friend-close. They’d always been too close, apparently.

“Um, I just—it’s just,” his stuttering breaks her heart, because she knows, she feels that it’s not his aphasia, but rather a reluctance to tell her and she had thought starting over had fixed them. She doesn’t know what to do; she tries to nod encouragingly.

“It’s all caught up with me, I guess,” he offers, not meeting her eyes. “Been thinkin’ about Ward, or whatever It is.”

Oh.

“I know. When I saw his face again, I couldn’t believe it.” She reaches for his hand, and he lets her, but she felt the flinch and it burns.

“It’s not um, it’s not just that. I tried. Jemma, I promise you, I tried so hard, but… I did this. I told you I would bring Will back. I told you I wouldn’t let this  _thing_  come back, and…” His hand starts to tremble a bit beneath hers, and his eyes are glassy. “I failed everyone.  _Everyone_  on this whole bloody planet and I can’t even comprehend that. I failed you, and after everything it’s just… too much.” His breath hitches and he scrubs a hand over his forehead. He finally turns to her with a shaky smile that’s completely devoid of happiness.

“I don’t know how I got here,” he confesses. “I always had faith in my abilities, and even after the med-pod I thought… I thought maybe I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t what I used to be, but this? This is failure on a level so incomprehensible that…I just—” His palms are open towards her, begging for relief he doesn’t think he deserves.    

Fitz is beautiful. Jemma knows that now—or maybe she’s always known. His brain, his heart, his face, everything about him is just so beautiful and good.

Starting over might have been a mistake. If they hadn’t, maybe by now she’d be allowed to kiss his tears away. Maybe she could show him with her hands and her mouth that he’s so very exceptional and so very wrong about himself. Her words have always been ineffectual.

_Just admit it_ , a voice in the back of her brain tells her, and she’s torn between wanting to do anything to soothe him and a paralyzing fear that once she confesses he won’t be able to look at her. If he thinks  _he’s_  the bad guy here…

But Fitz is the most radiant person she knows, and the light keeps bleeding out of him. She realizes all she wants is to hold him close and patch up his holes. She would do anything—has done everything—to protect him, and it’s selfish. She’s been unbelievably selfish, but she’s a scientist and she knows it’s outside her ability to constantly fight off this instinct towards self-preservation. And self-preservation, for her, has always included Fitz.

She lets go of his hand, and curls her fingers into his bedspread instead.

“Fitz,” she starts, and it’s a whisper, and she thinks about the fact that everyone calls him Fitz, everyone is allowed to use her favorite word and that seems so strange, suddenly. “I helped Hydra.” She swallows down the nausea when she feels him stare at her.

“When, when you were on Maveth. They had me tied up and… their calculations were wrong, about the portal. I corrected them. I helped them because I couldn’t, I couldn’t stand the thought of something going wrong and you being trapped there. I didn’t care about It or any of them, I just cared about seeing you again.”

“Jemma…”

“Remember when you asked me, by the pool, to tell you I wasn’t Hydra?” His eyes widen a bit, and he scoffs.

“You’re not Hydra, Jemma.” He rolls his eyes as if he can’t believe anything so stupid could come from her brain.

“But I helped them, and now they’ve achieved something they haven’t been able to do in centuries of trying.”

“That’s hardly the same—"

“It feels the same. And I don’t regret it. I know I should… I’ve put countless lives at risk. I can’t even fathom the lives… maybe our entire civilization. I should hate myself. I hate myself for so many other things, but trying to save you, I just can’t. I don’t know what that says about me.”

“Jemma, stop.” He pulls her arm slightly and tries to look into her eyes. The combination of pain and affection she finds shimmering beneath the surface breaks her, and she feels her own tears spill over.

“You told me then, that you didn’t know what you would do if I were Hydra. How do you feel about it now?”

“You’re not Hydra,” he says again. “And… to be honest, I’d probably join you.”

“ _Fitz_ ,” she warns, and he smiles, and it’s almost enough.

She leans back against the wall and tries to breathe. She’s not sure why she was so afraid of telling Fitz. He sees the darkest pieces of her and thinks they’re golden, but he can’t see how blinding he is. “Well, if you won’t blame me for It returning, you certainly can’t blame yourself. You could never fail anyone, Fitz, least of all me.”

He stares at her with such longing that her whole body aches. She thinks it would be incredibly easy to close the distance between them, so she does.

Starting over is much more difficult in practice.

++

As far as snogging goes, it feels nice. Like,  _really really_  nice. Like,  _best she’s ever had and who taught Fitz to kiss like this?_  nice. But Fitz slowly extricates himself and she can’t help a disgruntled whine in the back of her throat.

“I–uh, don’t think we should,” he attempts, not looking at her, and if her brain would start working again maybe she could say something in response.

“Um, it’s just, you don’t feel… you don’t really want…”

“Stop telling me how I feel,  _Leopold_ ,” and his knee-jerk grimace causes a flare of triumph in her belly.

“I’m  _not_ , I mean, I’m not trying to, but it just seems obvious that—” he shrugs offhandedly, and it seems ridiculous to be trying to have this conversation while lying in bed, because she really wants to be doing so many other things. But his face is closing off and she’s so tired of hurting him, of hurting them both.

“What’s obvious?”

“Um…”

It might kill him to say the words, but she’s certainly not going to. She’s not going to be the one to bring up Will, not when she's finally exactly where she wants to be, when she’d just moments ago been content and giddy.

“I uh… you know how I feel about you,” he begins slowly, and she raises an eyebrow.

“Feel?”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course. It hasn’t changed.” He waves his hand a bit, as if his feelings for her are a non-issue, when she can’t imagine anything more important.  _Tell me all the ways in which you love me_ , she wants to say.  _I want to be so selfish._

“And-and I know you love me,” he’s continuing despite her silent pleading. “But you loved, are in love with, Will. I’m grateful, I really am grateful that you had someone there. And us working together, being friends again—it’s important to me. I think I’d rather have that back instead of—” he chances a glance at her.

Her limbs are anchors and she’s been drowning for years. “Instead of what?” She’s surprised he can even hear her over the sound of her heart shattering. What she wants to do is yell at him, that he’s being unfair, that they deserve something nice—don’t they deserve something nice?

“Instead of you settling because you’re grieving and we lost Will. Instead of doing this for comfort and then you feeling trapped later.”

It’s such an absurd thing to say, but there have always been miscommunications between them. Her instinct is to run, but she’s done so much of that and she’s suddenly afraid the universe will stop giving them second chances.

“I’m only going to say this once, because Will was a good man and I feel… so incredibly guilty for feeling this way. Fitz, I’m not settling for  _you_ ; I settled for him. I gave up on you, and I regret that more than anything. He had been there for  _fourteen years_ , and I thought… I really believed that hell was my future. We used up all the battery on my phone, so I didn’t even have you… your picture anymore. Will and I… we both knew we never would have worked here. That’s not why I wanted to rescue him. He was a good person, and he deserved to see the sunrise. He deserved to come home.”

She’s openly crying now, and Fitz’s hand is shaking where it rests on her hip. His other hand is gently stroking her hair, and she’s not sure whether he’s trying to comfort her or himself. “I’m not always… the best at working out my feelings. I loved him, but I also felt guilt and resignation and obligation, and I didn’t know what it all meant. And you…” She kisses his nose then, because she can’t go one more second without touching him.

“I dragged you up from the bottom of the ocean,” and she’s almost bragging. “We didn’t even pass our field assessments, and I used one breath for the both of us. You  _went to another planet for me_. Fitz, can you really believe that these things have happened to us?”

“No,” he laughs ruefully. “How did we even get to this point?”

“I’ll fight for you forever,” she whispers, and she knows it’s the truest thing she’s ever said. “But I want—” She gestures between the two of them. “I want an  _us_  to fight for. I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for me, I want you here  _with_  me. Please, Fitz.”

She’s fully clothed, but she thinks it’s the most vulnerable she’s ever been. Fitz exhales, all in a rush, and she’s not sure if he truly believes her, but he’s smiling softly and god, air, it’s surrounding her finally.

“Yeah,” he says simply. “Yeah, okay.” His eyes are clear and shimmering when she smiles back at him. They just stare at each other, breathing deeply, until Fitz breaks the silence.

“So, dinner?”

She rolls her eyes. There are many things she wants to do with Fitz, and dinner is surprisingly low on the list. But it’s been a long day, and relief is falling from him like raindrops.

“Okay, sure. Somewhere nice.”

He grins, and it’s breaktaking. He is the whole world, and she can’t believe they waited this long.

“Are we… I mean, I’m confused. Is this still starting over?” She can feel more than see his smirk.

“Ugh, Fitz.” She’s legitimately surprised at how much lighter she feels. Maybe talking through things does have its benefits after all. Maybe it’s possible to hold your heart out to someone and have it be cared for like the most precious gift. Maybe truly loving and protecting Fitz is being able to love and protect herself too, and that’s okay.

She flips over until she’s straddling him, and his eyes widen immediately. “Starting over is a bit overrated, don’t you think?” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively, ridiculously. “I mean, we’re not sixteen anymore, thank god.”

“Yeah, right. All those bloody hormones when your best friend’s a brilliant, beautiful girl. Awfully tiresome. Really glad to be rid of  _that_  problem.”

His flush belies his words, and then they’re both laughing, and it’s absurd. The tears haven’t even dried on her cheeks. But when she kisses him, she’s giving him back his last breath and she’s saving them both. When she curls up to his side and he wraps his arms around her and his hand barely trembles, she’s finally surfacing.


End file.
